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Back-Pay & Rev-Share Calculator
A compensation planning tool that converts unpaid effort, later salaries, and future revenue into transparent payout formulas that teams can agree on and sign. It addresses the recurring problem of how to treat historical unpaid labor once a project receives crowdfunding or starts generating sales.
Why this matters
Once the first real money appears, you have to answer the hardest question in an informal project: does that cash fund the future, repay the past, or both? Without a shared model, every contributor feels the distribution is arbitrary or self-serving. You need a transparent calculator that shows how unpaid weeks, current paid work, and future profits interact so everyone can review the same assumptions. If that logic is not documented early, resentment builds fast and any later agreement feels like a forced compromise rather than a fair plan.
- · Built for Leads of small funded or newly funded creative teams that previously relied on unpaid work and now need a fair payout plan..
- · Most likely monetization: SaaS subscription.
The Pain · Narrative
Once the first real money appears, you have to answer the hardest question in an informal project: does that cash fund the future, repay the past, or both? Without a shared model, every contributor feels the distribution is arbitrary or self-serving. You need a transparent calculator that shows how unpaid weeks, current paid work, and future profits interact so everyone can review the same assumptions. If that logic is not documented early, resentment builds fast and any later agreement feels like a forced compromise rather than a fair plan.
Score Breakdown
Market Signal
Go-to-Market
A studio lead who has just raised crowdfunding or signed an early publishing deal after a long unpaid development period.
5,000-15,000 teams annually in the core niche, with expansion into creator collectives and bootstrapped SaaS partnerships.
Funding-prep content and templates distributed through crowdfunding education channels for creators.
$19/month
Get 25 teams to create at least one payout scenario and 10 teams to send a generated agreement addendum to collaborators.
MVP Scope · 1–2 weeks
- Build contributor input forms for unpaid time, role, and target rates
- Create three payout models: back pay first, hybrid split, and pure future compensation
- Generate visual waterfall outputs for each scenario
- Add assumption notes and contributor review links
- Enable PDF export of payout summaries
- Link scenarios to agreement addendum templates
- Add sensitivity testing for revenue outcomes and staffing changes
- Implement approval workflow and version comparison
- Create simple fairness explanations for non-finance users
- Test with teams that have mixed paid and unpaid histories
Differentiation
Why This Might Fail
Self-rebuttal — the most important trust signal
- 1The product cannot resolve emotional disputes when people fundamentally disagree on what is fair.
- 2Users may revert to custom spreadsheets if setup takes too long.
- 3Funding-source restrictions may make scenario outputs hard to trust without compliance guidance.
Evidence Summary
How AI synthesized this insight — no verbatim quotes
A recurring theme was the absence of any accepted framework for translating unpaid effort into later compensation. Several comments proposed formulas involving repayment before normal profit sharing, while others stressed that incoming funds should prioritize future development. That tension shows a clear need for software that models tradeoffs transparently rather than leaving teams to negotiate from memory and frustration.
Action Plan
Validate this opportunity before writing code
Recommended Next Step
Build
Strong demand signals detected. Real pain, real willingness to pay — start building an MVP.
Landing Page Copy Kit
Ready-to-paste copy based on real Reddit community language — no editing required
Headline
Back-Pay & Rev-Share Calculator
Sub-headline
A compensation planning tool that converts unpaid effort, later salaries, and future revenue into transparent payout formulas that teams can agree on and sign. It addresses the recurring problem of how to treat historical unpaid labor once a project receives crowdfunding or starts generating sales.
Who It's For
For Leads of small funded or newly funded creative teams that previously relied on unpaid work and now need a fair payout plan.
Feature List
✓ Unpaid-hours and role-rate tracker ✓ Back-pay and recoupment formula builder ✓ Revenue-share waterfall scenarios ✓ Signed payout-plan addendum generation ✓ Contributor-facing fairness dashboard
Where to Validate
Share your landing page in r/r/gamedev — that's exactly where these pain points were discovered.
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